


Closure

by letitrainathousandflames



Series: Clone Trooper Files [3]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood, Bruises, Canon-Typical Violence, Fox knows he hates him for killing Fives, He challenges him to a sparring match/duel, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Other, Rex is grieving over Fives and being highly aggressive and reckless, Things get messy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 18:08:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13416735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letitrainathousandflames/pseuds/letitrainathousandflames
Summary: Rex isn't over Fives' death, and turned his own grieving into a tide of anger that is making it dangerous to have him as a Captain. Fox knows Rex needs to let out his anger, and he feels like he needs to atone for what happened at that warehouse, where a clone trooper of name Fives was killed by Fox's own blaster fire.Both Rex and Fox need closure.





	Closure

Rex hits the punching bag as hard as he can, jab-jab-hook, jab-jab-hook. The chain from which the bag hangs squeaks and rattles at each blow.

The training room is full as usual, brothers sparring here and there, lifting weighs, hitting the bags like Rex does too. Rex keeps at it, fast and hard, the thuds of his punches filling his ears.

Drowning away the screaming, and the gunfire, and the parting words and final breaths. His wrapped-up knuckles land against the bag again and again. Rex’s breath is chopped and labored, his face hot dripping with sweat, his sleeveless training blacks sticking to his moist chest, the muscles of his back pulled tight in his tension. He bounces light on his feet, shifting his weight left and right as he keeps punching. More than a couple of shinies are staring at him without blinking as they lift weights; everyone admires captain Rex of the 501st. Today, there’s more reason to staring, though; a day prior, during a pursuit down there in Coruscant, Rex, Cody and Fox had been assigned to a mission for tracking and arresting a group of dangerous assassins intel has discovered to have been sent to kill the Chancellor. Risking the lives of his own men, Fox’s and his own, Rex went head-first into the fight instead of waiting for Jedi support; the action had been reckless and stupid; in Coruscant of all places, it wouldn’t be risky to just scout and wait – the Jedi Temple was close by, and soon Skywalker, Kenobi, Unduli, Bilaba and hell knows how many others joined the fight, quickly solving the issue without any casualties.

This wasn’t Rex, and anyone who knew it could confirm. Rex had been under Skywalker’s “jump in first, plan later” influence, sure, as much as Cody had been under Kenobi’s “look at all possibilities, and if you have to, create a new one”, but he was always thoughtful to his men, especially working alongside another commander. This was a much strange behavior to the captain, as was the anger with which he seemed to be throwing punches at the punching bag; Rex usually was averse to physical training – you could catch him any day in the shooting range, where he would always get the best score. But now it seemed like all he wanted was to punch something until he’d break his goddamn knuckles.

“Don’t do it, vod.” Cody asks all the way across the other side of the room, eyeing Rex as he talks to another clone “I’m telling you, it’s a bad idea, just leave it as it is.”

Fox gulps down a lot of water from a bottle with the Republic’s symbol on it, sighing and wiping the sweat off his forehead.

“I gotta do something, Cody.” he answers, looking at Rex as well “I need to.”

“Don’t—” Cody still tries to say, but Fox walks away; _ah, kriffing hells_ , he thinks placing his hands over his hips, _better stay away at least_.

Rex is still punching, counting and each strike and restarting the count. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three; he sees a clone walking closer on the corner of his eye; one-two-three, one-two—

“Rex, we need to talk.”

Rex half-hesitates before throwing another punch. Clones. They all have the same voice, but some have it lower or higher, some used slangs from different areas of the galaxy, others had their mandalorian accent pristine and unchanged like they’d never left Kamino. Few clones were like that, even less in the higher chains of command. Fox is one of these clones.

“T’cha want?” Rex goes back at punching like Fox wasn’t there

“Can you stop and listen to me?” Fox asks bitterly

“I’m training.” Rex keeps punching “I can listen while I train.”

Fox sighes, looking away from Rex for a moment to then raise his eyes to him.

“We need to talk about what happened yesterday.”

Rex keeps punching and grunted in response, like an “aye, I hear you”. Fox continues:

“What in the blazes was that?”

Rex keeps punching. Jab-jab-hook.

“I improvised.”

“You opened fire on the man commanding a detachment of commando droids.”

Fox’s voice is low despite the loud blows of Rex’s on the punching bag, like he doesn’t want to draw any attention to the two of them. This isn’t a reprimand and Fox doesn’t want it to look like one. But he has to speak his mind.

“Rex.” He tried again “You put your men at risk. You put _my_ men at risk. If you’re pissed at me, talk to me but don’t kriffing take your rage on my troopers.”

Rex is punching slightly harder now. Jab-jab-hook.

“He was going to escape.”

Jab-jab-hook.

“The jedi were on their way!”

Jab-jab-hook.

“I couldn’t just let him march into the streets with weaponized droids!”

Jab-jab-hook.

“My men and I had evacuated the streets earlier! Rex! Whatever the hell you got going on with me about Fives—”

Rex spins around and Fox has to draw back to avoid the spinning kick that lands on the bag. The thing swings like a pendulum under Rex’s raw strength, and the Captain swallows down, breathing hard between his teeth and finally looking Fox in the eye.

“There’s nothing going on, _commander_.” he spits out Fox’s rank under his shallow breaths “The situation is under control, and I’ll be shipped next week for an assignment so you can relax, I’ll be out of the way of your police duty.”

There is venom in his words; everybody knew that the some clones mocked surveillance officers like Fox and his men, or shinies watching over watchposts, like their work for the Republic was less important than the one of those sent away with Generals like Kenobi and Skywalker. Of course, they would face war where it called them with their own general, but they’d spend most of their days at the safe city of Coruscant, nice and easy.

Rex grabs the hem of his shirt, lifting it to dry his face. His eyes could light a candle in the dark, burning at Fox as he straightens himself up. It’s like Fox’s face disgusts him, the way Rex scrunches up his nose and twists the corner of his upper lip. Fox holds Rex’s gaze relentlessly, and then mutters:

“Let’s spar.”

Rex’s face goes stiff at that, bewilderment overtaking his features.

“…what?”

Fox nods a few times.

“Yeah. Let’s spar. You and me, right now. We fight, you throw that anger of yours out and go back to acting like a normal person.”

Rex’s eyes widen and he looks at Fox like he’s making a stupid joke, turning his back on him.

“That’s the stupidest shit—”

Fox lunges forward and blocks Rex’s path.

“Listen to me.” He pokes a finger at Rex’s chest; Rex looks down to it like it’s a knife “Kriffing listen to me. Your men respect you. I respected you, before you became this mess of a person, you’re...”

“Get out of my way.” Rex demands dryly

“…acting recklessly, selflessly, you could’ve cost the lives of our soldiers…”

“I said” Rex pushed Fox out of his way with a shove of his shoulder, walking past him “out of my way.”

Rex is three steps into storming out towards the doors when Fox barks out:

“I challenge you to a fight, Captain Rex.”

The chatter and occasional sound of weigths being dropped down and punches landing on backs drops to an eerie silence that sweeps over the entire room. You could hear a loth-cat’s steps if you wanted to, as much as you could hear the harsh breath that Rex pushed out of his lungs still having his back turned on the commander, and Fox spoke again with his voice dry and collected.

“You have to say something, vod. I challenged you.”

Rex’s shoulders go up and down with his breathing.

“I’m not answering this stupidity.”

“Then you’re walking out?” silence follows, and Fox’s gaze sweeps across the room “None of our brothers will interfer; they know the code. This is your chance to set things straight, Rex. We’ll settle this as men.”

Slowly, very slowly, Rex turns to face Fox. The commander is looking at him with squared shoulders and a head held high. The sight came like a stab to Rex’s gut, reminding him of Fives’ proud posture, the way he’d stand his ground, willing even to disobey direct orders to follow his instincts and protect his brothers. Fives, whose warning of the alleged brain chips still slithered in Rex’s thoughts on a daily basis. Fives, whom on his dying breath had been speaking of his wish to do his duty, and how this war was bigger than any of them.

Fives, who had been shot dead by Fox.

Rex looks to Fox’s fingers, wrapped up in bandages. Had he been planning this? Planning to fight Rex, to fight the Captain of the brave ARC trooper he had killed? To Rex, both Fives and Echo had been like younger siblings or even sons more than any other men under his charge had ever been before, and Rex would be glad to die knowing that Fives would be in charge of his men, he wouldn’t trust any other for the task. But he wasn’t ready to see Fives die, not that way, not shot dead while Rex could only watch helplessly. _The jedi were right_ , he had thought bitterly back then _, it would be better not to get attached_.

“So, do you take my challenge?” Fox asks again, and Rex balls his hands into fists, looking around the room.

He can see Kix shaking his head intently, begging him not to do such a thing. Cody is looking down like he disapproves both Fox and Rex himself. To his right is Jesse, just recently promoted to ARC trooper by Rex himself. He is a good man, a good trooper, but it had always felt like he didn’t belong to the spot. That was Fives’, and it would always be.

And Fives isn’t anywhere to be seen, of course. _Funny thing_ , Rex thinks in a distant way, _Fives would be the only person whose advice I’d hear about not getting in a fight to avenge Fives._

So Rex takes a step towards Fox. He swallows down, his eyes burning at the commander.

“Is this what you want?” he asks between his clenched teeth, and he is at war with himself, his rational side being slowly smothered into silence by the part of him that makes his fists shake discreetly, the part of him that just wants to see Fox, _slicked back haired_ Fox with his _impeccable Republic crest blacks_ and his _perfect posture_ lying down disgruntled in pain like Fives did before he died. “To fight like children in front of these shinies? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”

Fox doesn’t even blink.

“That one was you, not so long ago. And your men need their Captain back, the whole 501st… No, the army needs you with your head back in place, Rex.” he nods “A duel. One on one.”

Rex lets out a laugh that comes out like a snarl. He’s better than this. Better than Fox. But then Fives crosses his mind, and Rex knows Fives would kriffing take this fight. Fives would do everything for a fallen brother. Taking part in this isn’t like Rex at all, but it is like Fives, and maybe this is what Rex needs to do to honor him. He bares his teeth at Fox.

“I take your challenge.” he snarls “And the strongest shall win.”

The strongest shall win. That is the higher law of a Mandalorian. Born from tubes in Kamino, slaves to the Republic, tools of the Jedi Order… a clone’s sense of identity is complex, but Rex is one of the few one to have known Jango Fett in person as a cadet. Jango taught them of values. Of bravery. Of honor. The ways of the Mandalorians were what the clones had closest to culture, religion and way of life. Fox had been taught by Fett too. He knows the weight of what they are agreeing to.

They slowly walk towards the center of the room, and the other clones automatically open a circle around them like droids on command, mesmerized by their timed footsteps. Jesse walks to Rex’s side. Of course he does.

“Sir, this is insane, cut this out immediately.” Jesse says in a whisper, eyeing Fox nervously as Cody seemed to try to dissuade Fox instead.

“He challenged me to a duel, Jesse.” Rex answers, looking at Cody with spite in his features. _Traitor. Taking his side, are you?_

“To the blazes with it!” Jesse hisses “He’s a vode, one of us, look, Captain, I know about what happened back in the warehouse with General Skywalker but you—”

“Jesse, back off.” Rex said dryly “This is a direct order.”

“Rex—”

“Back. Off.”

Jesse walks backwards in defeat, shaking his head, and Cody backs away from Fox too, sighing heavily and looking at Rex like he’s begging him to stop this madness. Rex’s blood pumps in his ears like snare drums. He hears steps behind him, men rushing in through the double doors, and under a heavy breathing, he recognizes the snarling voice:

“…the karking hells?”

Wolffe walks to Rex from the sidelines looking from him to Fox. He sees Rex sliding his left foot back and slightly outwards, leaning forward with his weight on his right leg. He recognizes how Rex is getting into the fighting stance that every shiny knew from heart, taught from their days as a cadet ever since they learned to walk, and Wolffe crosses his arms over his chest. He, more than any of his batch brothers, was fond of the hand-to-hand combat techniques over the blasters and all the technological stuff, like something that connected him to their culture.

And Wolffe of the eye cut off the socket by separatists, Wolffe of the “general Koon had to order Kamino not to decommission him and get him a prostetic eye”, Wolffe of the permanent scar over his face and the prosthesis that stings on a daily basis… He understands the need for closure. He understands the thirst for vengeance.

So he doesn’t say a word as his soldiers of the 104th look at him in bewilderment, like they’d thought he would stop Rex as he got there, call him to reason. No, to Wolffe, this was reason. Taking matters into hands.

Rex feels the righteousness of his actions in Wolffe’s silent approval, and raises his hands into half-open fists on a perfect fighting stance. Fox also puts himself in position, and there is utter, deafening silence, except...

_Rex…_

Rex can still hear the echo of Fives’ voice inside his head. Like he’s been doing every single day since that night. Rex bounces on his legs, back and forth and back and forth—

He lunges forward with a snarl, sending a tension-loaded blow directed to Fox’s face. Fox raises his forearm, blocking him with a grunt; Rex is already driving his other fist to Fox’s stomach, and he blocks to late. Fox is coughing like he might throw up but he lifts his right leg and lands a high kick right on Rex’s sternum. Rex staggers back and Fox lunges, aiming a fist now to his face; Rex dodges, going for his wrist but Fox is quick and he draws back—

The men watch in awe. None of them had any idea that both the captain and the Commander could fight with such perfection, such raw power. Trained to fight blaster-wielding droids and to use blasters as their own weapons, it’s rare for a trooper to have to use their fists. They hear the hard blows and the grunts that come out from between their clenched teeth, but all that Rex can hear is…

_This is bigger… than any of us…_

He screams, blocking a punch from Fox’s and another, going for a jab that hits Fox over his cheekbone, then another, but as he’s going for the hook, Fox dodges, kneeling him on the gut. Rex coughs, tries to catch his breath, and his face feels hot, all of him does, scorching with anger and hatred and bloodlust.

_…bigger than anything I could’ve imagined…_

He dodges a new strike and lunges forward to the side of Fox’s, hooking his arm over his neck and placing his own opposite arm over his wrist, and he begins to pull it over his windpipe. Fox coughs helplessly, and somewhere he can hear a clone demanding them to stop, probably Cody, but his mind is too hazy in the heat of the battle, all he can think about is Fives and the fear in his eyes as he was dying, after Fox shot him, after Fox did that monstrosity to a brother, to one of their own. His ears are ringing nonstop as Fox struggles and coughs, and he looks at what he’s doing and the shock of is makes him loosen his grip.

Fox drives a blunt strike of his elbow to Rex’s face and his sight blacks out for a second as he stumbles back, letting go of Fox, who’s struggling to catch his breath, coughing violently still. For a small, brief instant, Rex tries to get hold of himself, of what the kark he’s trying to do here, but over the ringing of his ears, all he hears is…

_I only wanted to do my duty._

So he goes at Fox with a brutal sequence of punches that just doesn’t stop, doesn’t allow a breach, just one fist after another, his guard no longer raised, no concern given to his own safety, all he wants is to punch and to hurt. He spits the blood dribbling down his nose and over his lips after Fox had hit him with his elbow, the taste of it igniting the fight in him even further. Fox is trying to defend himself but even his held up forearms must be aching as they protect his face from Rex’s unleashed wrath. He grunts and staggers at the blows that occasionally come through and he suddenly lowers both his arms at once, looking stoically at Rex.

Any honored man would’ve take a step back. Any regular soldier with a good set of morals would have at the very least stop hitting. But this clone trooper, this captain who’s seen man after man dropping dead in the battlefield for a Republic that disregards their lives like a clanker’s, this man who’d be haunted by Slick’s accusations of him and his brothers being no more than slaves, this man who had seen his friend, his right hand man, _the one who could’ve been his own son_ in any other life dying… Fives, who died in pain and scared, to then have his armor discarded and destroyed, and his legacy written only in his brothers’ hearts, born not with a name but a number, with the purpose not to live but to survive…

All Rex can do is keep hitting.

The first punch hits Fox right in the jaw. He stumbles, grunting. Rex is breathing hard, feeling the numb pain on the bones of his hand after so many punches, and he drives the next one on a solid, rapid jab to Fox’s face, like a biting snake right to his nose. Fox struggles to stand on wobbly knees as blood rains down his nose like a broken dam. The loud crack of Rex’s fist connecting to Fox’s already bruised cheekbone echoes in the room, but not as much as the thud of him collapsing down on his back like a bag of droid parts.

He still tries to cover his face as Rex throws himself over him, grabbing him by the front of his blacks and raising a clenched fist. He half-lands a punch to Fox’s face, but his raised arms are on the way again; Rex gets a hook right on the side of his skull, and the sheer pain and disorientation makes Fox drop down his arms, like Rex knows it would.

..the mission…

Rex pulls his fist back and punches. He pulls his fist back and punches. He pulls his fist back and punches. He hears the grunts and whimpers. He feels the hard bones against his knuckles. He hears something crack. He doesn’t care. He cannot care.

The nightmares...

And all he sees is red, and his breath is fire in his lungs, and his fist is slick with blood that soaks over the wrapped bandages on his fingers; he screams out, his arm aches for the constant, tensed-up, repetitive movement; His sight is blurry and he sees blood oozing out of Fox’s mouth by strings of red that drip on the floor. His nose is swollen and it bleeds out almost as much.

are...

All he can think is how much he needs to keep punching, to keep hurting, to pry out this dark thing inside his chest and feed it to Fox so that he can see how much he’s hurting, how much he’s bleeding without a wound, much more than Fox himself bleeds now. And Fives doesn’t ever leave his thoughts, the way he cared for his brothers, how proud he’d make Rex, how he laughed and loved with his whole being, and his voice…

…finally over.

Rex gasps out, his breath harsh and shallow as he punches Fox yet again.

“He just wanted to do his duty! Was that so much to ask of him?!” he screams to Fox’s face, not caring if he even would understand what he meant “He just wanted to do his duty!”

Fox looks up to Rex as much as he can. One of his eyes had began to swell up, almost falling shut. His nose gushes blood and his broken lip lowers down to show his teeth reddened by the blood that trails down his chin. His face is a mess all around, and he had done nothing to stop Rex from beating him to a bloody pulp.

“And I just wanted to do mine.” he says in a raspy, pained whisper “I told him to stand down. I tried to save him. You saw it all, vod.”

That didn’t ease Rex’s anger at all. It only ignited it further as his ears rang still, and Rex punched him across the jaw again.

“I’m not your vod, you dar’manda! You are no brother to me, not a kyramud like you, capable of shooting one of us…!”

Fox threw his head to the side and spat blood on the floor, coughing.

“You may… not believe me, Rex but…” his breathing was ragged and labored, pain spreading all over his features “It haunts me everyday. I wish I could change it. I wish I could… fix it…”

Rex remembers wishing to fix things. Like ordering his men to shoot at the troopers of the 212th in Umbara. Like listening to Fives before Hardcase got himself killed. Like telling Ahsoka not to leave. Like not leaving his blasters close to where Fives could get them and point them at Fox and his men. But he clenches his jaw at that, snarling and drawing his fist back; he doesn’t want to think. He doesn’t want to understand and forgive. He wants blood, more of it, all of Fox’s if it’s necessary. Despite how much several of the brothers watching being clearly on their toes with the wish to help, Rex knows that their respect for the code would allow him to calmly kill Fox with his own hands if he gets to it.

And he thinks of Fives, who had forgiven and paid visits to Dogma as often as he could while he was locked up for reevaluation, even slipping in with a board of holotable to play with the same man who almost had him and Jesse executed. Fives would stop now. Fives would say it’s good enough. Rex’s fist shakes, pulled back in absolute tenson. But Fives isn’t here because of Fox, he thinks. Still, Fives was the one to absorb all his brothers’ personalities to make it seem like they were still there. Like Echo’s way of memorizing rules and codes. Like Hardcase’s badly timed jokes. Like so many others who had been under his charge.

Maybe this is the best way to keep Fives still there with him, to absorb some of what he was into himself. So Rex lower his hand and gets up to his feet, adrenaline still pumping in his blood. He takes a solid moment examining the outcome of his deeds, Fox’s beaten, bruised face and the blood pooling close to where his mouth is. He stumbles back, moving his foot over his torso and still staring at him to then feel the stinging of the many eyes looking at him in shocked, terrified silence as Fox does the best he can to smile with his swollen, bloody lips before his eyes fall shut. Rex stumbles back, and the sound of his own steps are like gunfire in the still unbroken silence, boom, boom.

Then he spins on his heels, marching towards the door and all hell breaks lose. All the men start talking at the same time – Kix screaming for the shinies to get the kriff out of his way – Rex keeps walking and the clones ahead just jump out of his way like he’s a commando droid or goddamn Grievous with his damn four laser swords spinning in front of him – Steps trying to follow him through the crowd, but no, he won’t stop, he can’t, he needs to leave, he can barely breathe-

Not quite knowing how he got there, Rex reaches the washroom, stumbling to the sink. He knows this feeling running in his bones, the same he experiences in a shuttle headed home after a bloody battler, the feeling that his legs will just give in at the thought that the action is over, that he no longer has to feel tense and fear for his life. He grabs at the edge of the long marble sink, staining it red and turning the faucet’s squeaking knob to then put his hands under the cool stream of water that stings on his bruised knuckles. The water on the white sink spirals down in a washed-off red color as Rex rubs his palms, his mind hazy like his brain had been replaced with cotton wool. The blood from under his nails won’t come off and he tugs at the handwraps over his fingers, tearing it and tugging it over his hurting bones—

“What in the stars was _that_ , Rex?!”

Rex’s eyes dart to the mirror in front of him and he see’s Cody’s reflection, Wolffe walking in behind him. He swallows hard. He can’t answer. He doesn’t know what in the stars that was. Perhaps he never would. So he mutters the only thing that sounds rational now.

“He challenged me.” Rex shuts the water stream, finishing ripping off the handwraps and tossing them on the sink; they had a disgusting, nauseating bloody pink shade to them now

“What the kark did you do back there?!” Cody hisses; he seems to be livid at Rex “Do you have any idea of what you’ve done?!”

“He asked for it.” Rex grumbles, not meeting Cody’s eyes

“To get his face ground to shit?!”

Rex snarls, curling his fingers. They hurt like hell, a numb throbbing rushing over them.

“Stay out of my business, Cody.”

“It’s my business!” Cody slaps a hand on his own chest “It’s everybody’s business! We are brothers, Rex, we are the Republic’s Army! Do we have the slightest notion of the mess this stunt of yours will become?! The rivalry this will spark?! Two of our shinies were already talking shit to Fox’s guys, this could get bloody! We are a unity! We don’t fight each other!”

Rex rolls his eyes, facing Cody at once.

“Like you and Wolffe never disagreed on tactics and and ended up figthing.”

Cody lets out a sharp sigh.

“Yeah, but have you seen me beating Wolffe to a pulp?”

“Have Wolffe ever cost you your best fri- your best soldier?”

Cody shakes his head, his tone going much softer now, and he looks at Rex with genuine concern.

“I know you’re hurt, Rex. I know. But you can’t just hold a grudge like that and end up... this is not you, and you know it.”

“He killed Fives.” Rex says in an angry growl

“I know, Rex, but…” Cody scratches his head, looking for Wolffe like he begged for a help that the other commander refused to give, now leaning to a wall and watching Cody and Rex’s discussion “Kark… You never gotten like this over a soldier. You are a commanding officer like  me, you know the stakes, you know we lose soldiers and there’s nothing we…”

“Not like this.” Rex cut him off, raising a shaky finger to Cody “Not to our own men, not to own own blasters, not in Republic’s soil, on Coruscant of all places.”

Cody looked at Rex with a great amount of pity and sadness in his eyes. Cody had always been a little too compassionate, most of it learned from his General. Kenobi used to say that is a jedi’s duty to sense the pain of others, and do your best to relieve it. Kenobi also said that one should not allow themselves to be affected by other’s pain. Cody was never particularly good at that part.

“Rex…”

“He killed Fives.” Rex repeats, and he feels like he’s drunk, unable to form coherent sentences; drunk on anger and pain and grief, and it’s like he’ll never sober up, and he roars “HE KILLED FIVES!”

His voice echoes on the white tile walls, and after a few small seconds of silence, Cody says in a small voice:

“What he said, it was true, you know? He was only doing his duty.”

Rex’s eyes go wide and his throat feels narrow, it’s like his heart is clenching on itself.

“Doing his duty for this shitty Republic that lets my brothers die for the dozens, uses us as human shields, feed that honor crap to cadets and expects us to be happy to die…”

At that, Cody’s voice loses its kindness and goes dry and sharp.

“Rex, shut up.”

“Fives was on to something, Fives knew” Rex was just running his mouth as the lack of the adrenaline of the fight left him with nothing except the emptiness left by Fives “He knew it, always did, ever since he told me he wasn’t a number, to stand our ground to stand up for my brothers, and this republic is kriffing killing them one by one.”

“Rex.” Cody is downright angry now “You’re toeing the line to treason. Shut. Up. Now.”

Rex runs his hand over his cropped blond hair, biting down on his lip so hard it bleeds, and he swallows at it, fighting his need to cry. Cody turns his back on him.

  “I’ll check on Fox. Kix was doing what he could back there. If he files a complaint, Rex, there’ll be nothing I can do. He has witnesses, a ton of them and I…” he made a pause, placing his knuckles on the doorframe “I won’t lie to cover you. You need to come to your senses, vod. I know you’re grieving, but you need to get it together.” He walks out and stops, speaking over his shoulder “I love you, vod. We all do. Please, just… Just get back to being who you are.”

Hearing Cody say his brothers loved him makes the plans slithering in Rex’s brain - of leaving and finding out what Fives had actually discovered - feel even more treacherous, and Rex feels like he’s gonna die right then and there, his throat almost closing down on itself, his chest tight, his breathing unexplainably shallow. He runs a hand over his face a small laugh of hysteria breaking out of his lips.

“What about you Wolffe? Pissed at me too? Where’s your lecture?”

Wolffe stops leaning against the wall, eyeing Rex with something he’d never seen before in his mismatched eyes, and that Rex finally recognizes as fear.

“I think you’re right.” He says very quietly “I think there needs to be something more to our lives than fighting and dying and” he runs his fingers over his large scar “this. There has to.”

Rex gasps out and closes his eyes for a moment, squeezing them like he can lock the world away, and with it, his pain. Then a pair of arms at thrown over his back, and he feels himself being pulled into a hug from Wolffe.

“It’s okay, Rex.” Wolffe's voice is low and there is sorrow to it, and Rex remembers that Wolffe once had been adrift in space, most likely thinking he would die; on his arrival, he had said in awe to Rex that his general had said that his life mattered "I understand you. We are more than numbers, your soldier Fives was, and you can grieve over him. It's okay."

Rex gasps again as he places his chin over Wolffe’s shoulder. The warm feeling of his brother’s hug, Wolffe of all people, who never could be accused of wearing his heart on his sleeve, makes Rex feel whatever was about to break inside him crack for good, and it feels like it triggers an entire construction to crumble and collapse in his mind. All his codes, all he’d learn in Kamino and in the battlefield, all he’d seen by General Skywalker and Commander Tano’s side….

His eyes well up with tears that make his sight blurry, and he sobs into his brother's arms.

“I miss him so much…!” he tries to catch his breath and fails as fresh tears spill down his eyes “I miss them all so much, all of them, I keep count – on my armor – every day remember – names – even if nobody else does…!”

Rex’s words turn to a messy crying that makes no sense. Wolffe holds him, unmovable, and Rex presses his face on Wolffe’s shoulder to muffle his crying. He thinks of Fives plastoid-armored chest glowing gold and red by the blaster shot fired by Fox; Fox, who had been bleeding like hell and _kriffing_ smiled at him like he’d performed some kind of duty; And Cody, to whom the Republic mattered more than their own lives; And his plans of leaving and how they’d hurt the 501st reputation, how all of his men would forever wear their blue-coded armors with shame; and how heavy was the duty of a Captain, of a clone trooper and how Rex never asked for this weight, none of his brothers never did, and maybe Cut Lawquane had been right all along, and…

Rex knows that to Fives, the nightmare had been finally over. But he, Rex, will be forced to live in it for a long time. And he doesn’t know if he has what it takes to endure any more of it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> yramud - killer, murderer
> 
> dar'manda – a state of not being mandalorian not an outsider, but one who has lost his heritage, and so his identity and his soul. Rex doesn't consider Fox to be his brother, or A brother at all. To him, Fox became something else other than a clone after he shot Fives down.


End file.
